Opinions and sentiment are important but as the age-old saying goes: ‘Actions speaks louder than words’, and in this case, the recent actions of whales have been causing ripples in the cryptomarket. For savvy crypto investors, the activity of whales, as well as those from large accounts, have always been useful indicators of future crypto price action.
According to Whale Alert, a series of large transactions preceded April’s crypto market surge which saw the market capitalization grow by nearly 30%, from $140 billion to $180 billion.
On April 2, Reuters reported that more than 6 million trades occurred over the hour that witnessed a significant price rise and the majority of this activity was concentrated on Asia-based exchanges. This is three to four times higher than the usual trading volume and it appears that whales were partially responsible for ending the crypto winter and their covert movements caused the market to perk up noticeably. According to an analysis from Bloomberg, the actions of whales created a ripple effect which revised other cryptocurrency holders who had been dormant throughout 2018. Only 10% of BTC wallets remained inactive, while the average for previous months was about 30-40%. Notably, all the top-10 crypto wallets were active during April.
One of the largest transactions at the end of April was a $1 million transfer that was received by this address. A little digging into the transaction revealed that the recipient was a blockchain-based investment service called Roobee. The investment appears to be connected to the completion of the first session of their private funding round and recent press shows the startup is now preparing to conduct an IEO on a number of large Asian exchanges. The whale, integrated “In Roobee I trust” into the transaction details and at one point appears to have had at least 7,000 BTC on his or her balance, though the possibility of the owner having multiple wallets cannot be ruled out.
Negative trends in the cryptocurrency market and the lack of demand for ICOs throughout 2018 and the beginning of 2019 changed to highly positive ones and whales are clearly drawn to IEOs. Roobee co-founder Artem Popov said that the investment shows that investors are clearly excited about IEOs and he told Forbes that the startup aspires to “provide retail clients with the same investment opportunities and level of security as the largest financial market players, but with minimum investment as low as ten bucks.”
Although Bitcoin’s price has yet to overtake its previous all-time high, the ability of crypto startups to launch token sales right on the exchange allows them to circumvent regulatory hurdles from governance bodies like the US Securities and Exchange Commission. IEOs also allow crypto startups to avoid the cumbersome task of finding an exchange to list their tokens several months after conducting their ICO.
To date, more than 50 projects have successfully hosted an IEO and an additional perk of the fundraising method is that listed projects must undergo a due diligence procedure which means investors can count on a higher degree of reliability and security when compared to the ICO method of 2017.
The decline of ICOs and increasing frequency and success of IEOs also shows that the crypto investors markets are interested in sector growth that values regulation, high-quality infrastructure, and investor protections that make it easier for new people to enter the market.
Today the impact of whales on the crypto market is stronger than ever and while the whales have a preference to remain anonymous occasionally one will come forward to share their insights about the general status of the crypto market. Take, for example, a February interview where CCN interviewed a crypto whale who forecasted that the market would recover quicker than most investors anticipated. With a bit of persistent emailing and blockchain explorer analysis, we managed to track down the investor behind the recent $1 million Bitcoin transfer and when pressed about a market forecast, the anonymous whale said:
“The cryptocurrency market, as compared with the stock market, is still in an emerging stage. The first investments in cryptocurrency of large investment funds, advances in the regulation and legalization, increasing number of real blockchain implementations, large business on the one hand and active financial development and the constant increase in the impact on the world of generation Z with their love for digital products and the reluctance to be tightly controlled on the other hand, create favorable conditions for the most powerful development of the cryptocurrency market in the next 3-5 years, in which Bitcoin at $ 50,000 will no longer be something supernatural.”
